


Mija

by windandthestars



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Minor Character Death, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 07:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13699539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/pseuds/windandthestars
Summary: “You think when you get home you’ll stop losing people. They were, she and Ana, they were close.”





	Mija

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rebeccavoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebeccavoy/gifts).



> Another NaNo snippet. This one born of yet another late night thought experiment (#insomnia) and Becca's indulgence. I kept my working title because I can't be bothered.
> 
> Warnings for (off screen) minor character death and a healthy dose of angst.
> 
> eta: I'll be adding more to this at some point (hopefully soon) because there's a distinct lack of clarity about the backstory. Eek.

He’s been watching her since she walked in. She’d been headed straight for his office, but she still stops dead when she sees him, her face transformed into the the same startled look he remembers from her first morning at ACN.

“Will. I was just—”

“Coming to find me?” He smiles as the look fades to a more familiar confusion.

“Yeah.” She nods, sliding a hand out from behind her and he notices suddenly the small head of black hair half-hidden by her legs.

“Hello Marí.” He squats carefully, one hand kept on the desk he’d been leaning on, waiting for the girl to peak out from behind Mac.

“Say hello. Di hola.” Mac prompts gently, reaching behind her to place her hand back on Marí’s head. “You remember Will don’t you, honey? ¿Recuerda Will?”

A pair of bright brown eyes appear then disappear, Mac’s pant leg shifting as Marí readjusts her grip.

“I think she’s a little overwhelmed. School’s still new and the train down here was more crowded than I ‘d hoped. It’s been a long day and—”

“My office?” He offers and her shoulders slump in relief. She’s been high strung since the morning she had walked into his office to ask for this afternoon off, and while he’s glad to see she’s relaxed a bit, he’s worried about how exhausted she suddenly looks.

“How about a snack at Will’s table?” She suggests gently as he stands. Marí doesn’t answer but she follows along as Mac moves, stealing another glance at Will as he holds the door open for them both, stepping in behind them to lean back against his desk as Mac sits, Marí immediately crawling into her lap, backpack still on.

“Marí.” Mac tries to coax the girl around but all she gets is an aggravated whine in response.

“I,” she starts as he rounds his desk to dig through a drawer for the bag of chips he had stashed there after lunch. He figures she’s attempting to explain what’s going on, but she’s having a hard time finding, if not the words, the careful indifference she needed.

He’d known Ana had passed, the black clothes, the blazer, Jim’s absence and now Marí’s presence would’ve been more than enough to confirm his suspicions if her glassy eyes on Monday morning hadn’t been the only confirmation he’d needed.

“I didn’t know what else to do.” She finally says quietly as he locates the chips and steps over to hand them to her.

“It’s all right. It’s been quiet all day. Boy Wonder got back about an hour ago.”

“I wish you’d stop calling him that.” She sighs, but there’s a glimmer of something like amusement in the complaint so he doesn’t reply as he gently lays his hand over Marí’s head.

“If you don’t want New York’s best hipster fried potato bits we can get something else. I haven’t sent Jenna out for dinner yet.”

“It’s almost five.” Mac checks the clock then glances at him for an explanation.

“I was waiting for you.” He shrugs it off, knowing he’s confusing her, running hot and cold like he has been, but it’s been a rough couple of weeks, not in the way it has been for her he knows, but things still feel sharp; he still feels a bit tender-hearted. “Any idea what we should get?”

“I don’t— Marí. ¿Qué te gustaría para cenar?”

Maggie knocks and slips inside when he nods, Mac gently trying to cajole an answer out of Marí. 

“I have those numbers you asked for.” Maggie hands him a couple of photocopied pages before turning to Mac. “Jim said to let you know he was meeting with graphics. Hello.” She adds when Marí’s head pops up at the mention of Jim.

“Maggie this is Marí.” Mac manages a tired smile at Maggie’s bright enthusiasm.

“Hola Marí.” Maggie smiles and Marí’s face lights up. Mac’s accent isn’t bad, but Maggie’s sounds nearly perfect to his unaccustomed ear, something Marí hadn’t missed. “Me encanta tu lazo.”

Maggie points to her own head and Marí reaches up shyly to tug at the ribbon in her hair. 

“It’s a beautiful bow.” Maggie translates for his benefit, and Mac’s it seems as she stares at Maggie blankly.

“I didn’t know you spoke Spanish.”

“I took four years in high school.” Maggie offers modestly, but he can see she’s pleased she’d surprised Mac.

“So did Jim and he can hardly order tacos from the guy down the street.”

Will snorts and ducks his chin to hide a smirk. 

“I practice sometimes. It comes in handy once in awhile. I’m not fluent if you think—”

“I’m sure she’s not expecting anything,” Will assures her, “except maybe some tacos.”

“Tacos?” Marí picks up on the familiar word, glancing at him expectantly.

“How do you say—” He starts to ask when Mac fills in, “¿Quieres tacos?”

But Marí doesn’t answer, turning in Mac’s lap so she can watch Maggie more intently.

“Tess has a couple of things for you to look over,” Maggie addresses him, “and Kendra wanted to know if—”

Maggie stops when Marí starts in with what sounds like a rapid fire series of questions, Mac shaking her head as she loses the thread of whatever Marí’s saying. 

“Earlier I tried to get her to slow down, but— she’s upset.”

That was evident not so much by the continuing torrent of questions but by the careful look on Maggie’s face, the calm explanation she tries to squeeze into the cracks between breaths and stuttering gestures.

Mac catches something, a question, a phrase. He’s not sure how much she can understand at this speed, but something unsettles her, presses her eyes shut, and makes her exhales waver.

He steps closer, quickly crossing in front of Maggie to stand on the far side of the toom by the window, Mac’s gaze flickering between him and the sky outside.

“That’s what they say at church right?” Maggie interrupts before he finds a way to ask Mac if she’s all right, and Mac takes a second to nod silently.

“Mrs. Martinez said she’s been trying to explain.” Mac tells him quietly as Marí’s side of the conversation picks up again. “But I’m not sure—”

“It’s a big thing,” he agrees gently and she sighs.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to,” she reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “I wasn’t expecting— This— She’s been staying with Mrs. Martinez.”

Mrs. Martinez was eighty five. She’d given him a fierce hug the afternoon he’d helped Mac move furniture for Ana, a outing he had accidentally volunteered for when Mac had showed up in his office looking distressed the Friday after the drone panel. Mrs. Martinez was spry for her age, he knew that, but he doubted she’d be able to keep up with a five year old indefinitely. 

“It’s all right. One—”

“Where was the—” Maggie interrupts again to ask carefully, “where was your friend buried?”

“Holy Trinity.” Mac swallows the words once before she gets them out clearly and Maggie’s explanation, Marí’s questions slow.

“She knows. She understands.” Maggie clarifies as Marí turns back to the table reaching for the bag of chips. “She wants to see where her mom’s buried. No one would tell her. She says she wants there to be flowers. She wants it to be pretty.”

“There are. It’s so,” she pauses as he squeezes her shoulder. “Quiet, peaceful. It’s the opposite of the neighborhood, but Ana,” she shakes her head. “Who made the cuts at the two?”

“Kendra and I,” Maggie starts in before he can protest. “We double checked everything with Jim. He says it looks fine. I can get you a copy of what we have so far.”

***

“I wouldn’t.” Sloan stops him as he rounds the corner by his office and he stops with a sigh.

“What?”

“Saddest sight in the world.”

“Mac? She ok?”

“Will be.” Sloan lifts a shoulder. “Your bathroom’s private.”

He pulls off his jacket as he pushes open the door so he can drop it and his briefcase onto his chair in one fluid motion before crossing the room.

He knocks on the wall beside the door and waits a moment before he peeks in. She’d started sniffling, trying to calm herself when she’d heard the door to his office open, but now when she looks up at him the sobs start again, her shoulders heaving as she drops her face back to her knees.

He sits next to where she’s scrunched up on the floor, knees drawn up to her chest, and waits, but the tears aren’t stopping.

“It’s going to be all right.” It’s the best he can promise her right now, but at least it’s honest in the same way his hand is, tentative and light on her shoulder.

She leans toward him with a shudder and he slips his arm around her back, lets her inch closer, her bare heels whispering on the tile as she scoots over.

“You lost your shoes.” He comments lightly and she pries her fingers loose from where they’re wrapped across her shin to gesture vaguely to the rest of his office.

“Under the table.” He agrees, leaning into her a bit to get a better look before settling back to squeeze her shoulder lightly. “I’m surprised Sloan didn’t try to abscond with them, add them to her collection.” 

Sloan didn’t have a collection, not of shoes, that was more Mac’s thing, but they both shared a love of designer brands, and if Mac was going to explain the difference between shoes and handbags and clothes to him, again, he knew she’d wait until she could tease him for his horrible attempt at levity. It’s still worth the effort though, to make the joke, to give her the distraction, and so he does, smiling at his own stupidity.

“I was there when,” she starts some time later, suddenly reaching to grab his arm, squeezing until he can feel the crescents of her nails through his shirt. “I was there and— she’d had the priest come that morning to— and I didn’t know. She never had a nurse on Sunday afternoons so I’d sit with her. She, she— Will.”

She whimpers and he pulls her close, listens to her gasp as she cries until she manages to calm herself enough to continue. “I sat there. I sat there and I cried and she patted my hand, so— so calmly. I asked her how. I thought maybe— I didn’t want— I didn’t want her to be alone.”

She holds her breath, face pressed into his shoulder, for several long seconds. Trying to hold off the worst of the tears he assumes as she trembles.

“I didn’t want her to go.”

“I know.” He whispers, voice raw, fingers tangling in her hair as he tries to soothe her. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t want her to.” She whimpers again and he has to swallow, take a deep breath, all the while silently cursing Sloan for being right.

“Jim doesn’t know you were there?”

“Nobody knows.” She’s calmer now, but her throat sounds raw, aching, her voice rasping, tugging at his heartstrings. 

“Sloan doesn’t?”

“I told her to leave me here.”

Of course she had, and Sloan had listened. She’d heard ‘I’m fine, I just need a minute’ and had left. Mac had wanted privacy, Sloan would tell him if he tried to take issue with her leaving, that’s why she was in his bathroom and not the women’s restroom.

“Mac,” He sighs but it’s all he gets out before she nuzzles his shoulder, pressing closer as he squeezes her gently.

“She was ready but I, I’m not.”

“You’re doing great. Marí—”

“Won’t sleep in her own bed, throws a tantrum every time someone tries to get her to do her English homework, only eats Lucky Charms for breakfast, won’t—”

“You both get out of bed in the morning, she dances around the newsroom every afternoon with Sloan shouting nonsense in Japanese, she eats more vegetables than I do, she’ll do her homework if Maggie translates it into Spanish. She’s doing all right. You both are.” He insists when Mac opens her mouth to protest. “It’s only been a couple of weeks. It’s going to take time.”

“It’s,” she tries to start but he shakes his head.

“She puts up with my google translate Spanish. Even you can tell how bad it is.”

She smiles faintly at that, and seems finally to relent.

 

*

“She’s all right.” He says when Jim walks in looking worried.

He nods, lingering for a moment before he decides to try and explain. “You think when you get home you’ll stop losing people. They were, she and Ana, they were close.”

“I know.” Will leans back, reluctant to get into it, but knowing Jim’s only looking out for Mac. “Before you,” he waves his hand through the air.

“New Hampshire.”

“You’d volunteered to move furniture. I ended up going instead. It was clear they’d spent a lot of time together.”

That was an understatement. It’d been clear Mac had been close with Ana when she’d thought she’d have to cancel. She’d looked at him with such obvious distress, almost pleadingly, and he had agreed, insisted he come along before he’d even realized what he was agreeing to. Meeting Ana, meeting Marí, hadn’t clarified that. It hadn’t clarified anything other than how big of an idiot he was. 

Mac had always been more subdued at the office, but that didn’t mean a thing when he’d seen her smile at Marí, heard her laugh at the joke Ana was telling. She was happy, she was glowing. Close was an inadequate descriptor for the joy the two women had shared.

**Author's Note:**

> I almost forgot, [there's a moodboard](http://daylightbegins.tumblr.com/post/170945355300/a-sweet-moodboard-for-a-couple-of-angsty-fic) for this set of snippets. It's sweet and yellow and very sunny for this much angst, but it's there in case you need a smile now ;)


End file.
